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Yeah now I dunno how effective that would be though.

It'd be easy to kite around if your opponent has any manuverability at all. With nothing but templates for ranged dmg you could have a huge chunk of points just running around chasing it's tail all game.

Yeah they're no very mobile at all but they could claim center board for sure.

You could just go full crazy and take a Dark Artisan formation and drop that in their back field. Then your kind of in between two units that you don't want to be anywhere near.

The good thing about them is they basically make a 6 inch to 12 inch or more threat range.

Plus the whole, I'm just going to multi charge you, I won't get Rampage this turn, but I will if you outnumber me next.

The main problem I encounter with reavers in my local club is drop-podding sternguards - they just annihilate reavers, denying both their armour and jink on first turn. Same with deepstriking flamers. They are just too fragile to be deathstar, even with seers because every TAC list will chew them if they try to be deathstar.

Drop pod marines are a hard-counter to dark eldar in general i think.

Yeah it's hard thing to defend against which is why I say bunker up with a bunker or take a Talos and Cronos, hard to kill beasties with a 4+ invulnerable.

Or take the Dark Artisan, Corspetheif Claw, and Scalpel formations and just be like " What's up Come at me Bruh"

Hollismason wrote:
Yeah it's hard thing to defend against which is why I say bunker up with a bunker or take a Talos and Cronos, hard to kill beasties with a 4+ invulnerable.

Or take the Dark Artisan, Corspetheif Claw, and Scalpel formations and just be like " What's up Come at me Bruh"

Actually, it's GK. Tons of force weapons to ID our monsters, plenty of dakka to thin the troops, and S6 soul blazing flamers to toast our transports.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Yeah it's hard thing to defend against which is why I say bunker up with a bunker or take a Talos and Cronos, hard to kill beasties with a 4+ invulnerable.

Or take the Dark Artisan, Corspetheif Claw, and Scalpel formations and just be like " What's up Come at me Bruh"

Actually, it's GK. Tons of force weapons to ID our monsters, plenty of dakka to thin the troops, and S6 soul blazing flamers to toast our transports.

GK can take pods now?

 Jimsolo wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Yeah it's hard thing to defend against which is why I say bunker up with a bunker or take a Talos and Cronos, hard to kill beasties with a 4+ invulnerable.

Or take the Dark Artisan, Corspetheif Claw, and Scalpel formations and just be like " What's up Come at me Bruh"

Actually, it's GK. Tons of force weapons to ID our monsters, plenty of dakka to thin the troops, and S6 soul blazing flamers to toast our transports.

GK can take pods now?

If they ally SW

 Vexler wrote:
The main problem I encounter with reavers in my local club is drop-podding sternguards - they just annihilate reavers, denying both their armour and jink on first turn. Same with deepstriking flamers. They are just too fragile to be deathstar, even with seers because every TAC list will chew them if they try to be deathstar.

Disagree strongly, though all the weaknesses you mentioned are valid. Drop pod marines are tough no matter who you are, but winning those fights is about how you fight not what your comp is. I play regularly against Calgar-pod, and if you play to the mission it's a very doable. Farseers cover the reavers weak defense well (mostly invisibility, but fortune/forewarning help a ton too). The rest is just being savvy about what you deploy and where.

Against drop pods you need to reserve the contents of your transports and walk them on leaving enough on to absorb the initial hit. Or like others mentioned you need to have something durable like a cronos or grots. I actually really like the scalpel squadron for this reason. You can go full reserve and not lose automatically.

Drop pod is not an easy thing to face.

in 7th there are starting to be a lot of builds for the codexes that are 7th, that are good builds. This makes it hard to build a TAC list sometimes.

regardless of the above thoughts..

against drop pods the best you can do is keep your best stuff off table at the start, so they have to pick from your mediocre to bad units, and try to counter their drop pod assault.

The talos/cronos/haem formation is good for this, as are mandrakes in min units. One because its tough to kill, the other because it has to be countered by models that ignore cover to remove it effectively and its so cheap to put a 3 model unit out.

Other things that make this viable are squads of 1 lhamean per archon. Its 10pts, its not going to do much but under circumstance you force your opponent to direct fire at it to remove it, ie to table you, or remove a unit from an objective. and 10pts against many armies that use 200+ point units as their main forces is good even if it just eats 1 turn of shooting to die.

basically just things you can put on the table that cost close to nothing, or are not easy to remove, so your opponent cannot table you then your beta strike killers come in and counter their drop pods.

That's really good advice, I know others have mentioned multiple unit spam, for target saturation.

Unit spam coupled with reserving your best units is probably the best strategy. I played drop Salamanders for years, and still think that's the best strategy against pods.

I think the Scalpel Squadrons good, I tried it out a bit, and it is really good for pulling ahead early on VPs, especially with Maelstrom as it's possible to claim two Objectives with them and get First Blood for D3.

The two times I used them I pulled ahead 2 to 3 points in the very first turn which I think is a great.

Hollismason wrote:
I think the Scalpel Squadrons good, I tried it out a bit, and it is really good for pulling ahead early on VPs, especially with Maelstrom as it's possible to claim two Objectives with them and get First Blood for D3.

The two times I used them I pulled ahead 2 to 3 points in the very first turn which I think is a great.

Yeah I'm stating to like Scalpel Squadron a bit more after testing it. I run mine with a Liquifier and Acothyst w/ Liquifier, DS Templates for First Blood are always nice (and my Venoms can never seem to finish the job off).

How does everyone run their Talos? Thinking of including a Dark Artisan and was wondering what the ideal load out would be (Spirit Probe on Cronos, Scissorhands, Nightmare Doll + Syndriqs Stump with Haemonculus)

I used to run Splinter Cannon, extra CC weapon, and chain flails, but since the switch I'm debating between the flails or the ichor injector. Ranged weapon is still all cannon all the time.

Go with the ichor injectors, they allow it to ID things like monstrous creaures, the flails aren't worth it IMO.

I am liking a scalpel squadron and dark artisan for anti pod. Heck, even the grotesquerie is great, let them drop things for me to tear apart early

I think the Nightmare doll Or Sump is the best way to go with the Dark Artisan formation, it gives him 3+ Feel No Pain and auto ignores a Instant Death attack, plus he comes stock with Feel No Pain so even if he does lose it to the ID, he still keeps a 4+ Feel No Pain.

Especially if you make him your Warlord so you can get Rerolls on your Feel No Pains.

Sump gives you 2 abilities that he's probably going to have anyway, It Will Not Die , and Poisoned 4+. The big thing everyone wants for Sump is Rampage which is totally worth it for 10 points.

The Haemonoculus stuff is actually pretty good.

edit:

Oh this is just balls crazy awesome assault unit that I tried out against just a straight up let's throw our HQs against each other.

Haemonoculus w/ Sump, Flesh Gauntlet ( Coven )
Lelith
3 Incubi w/ Klaivex

Holy gak is this deadly. Everyones a turn higher, has fearless, feel no pain, -1LD to peeps, You got 3 models that all have Rampage. On Turn 3+ it's got Furious Charge.

It's relatively cheap unit as well coming in at less than 400 with a transport.

I don't think the Doll and the Cronos give you 3+.

It works because the Cronos improves it to a 4+ , but the Nightmare doll doesn't improve it to a 3+ it just adds to your actual roll you make.

Cronos says "The model, and all friendly units with both the Dark Eldar Faction and the Feel No Pain special rule within 6" of one or more models with a spirit probe, receive a +1 bonus to their Feel No Pain (e.g. Feel No Pain would become Feel No Pain (4+). This is cumulative with any other modifiers to Feel No Pain, but cannot improve their Feel No Pain beyond 4+"

Nightmare doll says "The bearer of the Nightmare Doll adds 1 to any Feel No Pain rolls he makes. "

The Haemonoculus doesn't actually have a 3+ feel no pain, he has a 4+ , but if he rolls a 3, he adds one.

It's actually worded exactly how it would need to be worded to work with a Cronos , which is why it's as I see it RAW and RAI.

The other one that is crazy good thing I think people are missing is you can have mulitple Diabolical playthings, there is no restriction that I can find.

The coven codex says

" but can instead select Diabolical Playthings, presented opposite, at the points costs shown"

Diabolical Playthings have no restriction as far as I can see, so you could have

Dark Artisan

Haemonoculus w/
Panacea Perverted, Night Mare Doll, Vexator Mask, Syndriqs Pump, Flesh Gauntlet (160?)

4+(3+) Feel No Pain, 4+ It will not Die, 3+ Armor Save, and basically makes the unit immune from poison shots. In combat he'd have 4+ to wound poison , D3 additional attacks due to Rampage.

It comes down to what is considered a modifier. +1 to the roll or saying it passes on a 3+ rather then a 4+ is really the same thing. Other debates like this have sprung up though I can't think of one right now (lazy off post birthday sugar).

It's worth taking some of these things over to YMDA to be sure.

If you pass the roll when the die shows a 3, it's kind of hard to argue that the threshold isn't 3+. You might have some traction in a contextless argument, but unless your group also lets passengers in a wrecked Land Raider assault in their opponent's assault phase, I don't think anyone with knowledge of the DE rules would let it fly.

What do people think about Liquifier Guns on Talos?

Well the other argument for that is that the Spirit Probe isn't actually improving his save beyond a 4+, the Nightmare Doll is. So there are really two arguments for it. Adding one and giving +1 are two different thinks it may look on the surface semantically the same but it's actually not. One only happens when you roll, one is just a effect that is always on.

I mean the wording of Spirit Probe itself is pretty clear and meant to specifically prevent multiple Spirit probes from going crazy town.

I am not arguing, just suggesting opening a thread in YMDA.

Re-liquifiers, personally I don't like them. They make the unit go up in points rapidly at 15pts per and they work against you with assault. By that I mean they make an easy charge difficult when they work well. Especially when paired with the TL SC.

The Dark Artisan formation is super good basically. Although I think the Perverted Panacea and the Sydriqs are the best combos, 4+ FNP, 4+ IWND.

Hollismason wrote:
The Dark Artisan formation is super good basically. Although I think the Perverted Panacea and the Sydriqs are the best combos, 4+ FNP, 4+ IWND.

Especially when you take into consideration a 3+, whatever cover you can get, LOS, majority T7 and re-rolls of 1's for MC.

Only things I can think off that will take it out in one go are probably Dimachaeron and Dreadknight(?). Dimachaeron would have to make Ld check outside Synapse however

Not familiar with the Dimachaeron. How is it killing both MCs and the haemmy in one go?

Has 6 attacks base (including 2 weapons), has rampage, Weapon Skill 8 so hits on threes and has the ID special rule on 4+. If it makes the charge, it's got AG standard, so is S7 on the charge.

Best MC for nids to kill over Mc's with ...but then again, Splinter Fire should take it out relatively easy

Whats it's initiative , I'm assuming something insane?

Can you issue a Challenge to it, if so Vexators mask. Also, hilariously a single character should never charge the Dark Artisan formation and accept a challenge, because then it'd be a single character versus a independent character and the Haemonoculus would get its rerolls, while I assume the Talos and Cronos cheer him on.

Think that's how that would work.